EPTAt the end of last week I got some free coaching advice from an awesome Zerg player for ZvZ and he convinced me to try a ladder game and I got ZvZ and I dominated it. For the first time since I was playing I understood more than just the mechanical (what scouting info means what, what I need to make) but I understood far better than ever before the way to actually play ZvZ. I felt so confident with that extra understanding I've up'd my play time this week to 10+ so far (much more than ever in the past) and I've improved a lot in the last week as a result, it's really helped me get over my ladder anxiety. The first couple of games are still hard but having that real understanding of why I'm doing what for one match up has actually helped me to a lesser extent in the others and I have the confidence to beat that anxiety as a result now.
The other thing I found helped me to practice a long time ago was to gg at the end of every game. I know it might sound stupid to some people, but it really makes it easier to let go of any frustration and focus on what I did wrong than on why my opponents strategy is stupid/annoying/imbalanced (not saying their strats are but I used to rage quit a lot in my early days and this helped). I genuinely find my gaming more enjoyable with a polite gg and moving on, making it much easier to practice.
Finally was a little confidence boost from my brother. I was watching Moonglade stream and he walked by and asked who I was watching so I explained how awesome he was and his response was "Oh *pause* your creep spread is better" and went back to watch TV. And you know what? He was right. Moonglade is of course better than me in almost every way but my creep spread is better. Obviously his opponents are harder than mine so it's presumably not as easy to spread creep for players at his level but that still gave me something to feel proud about as it's something I was really bad at when I first started playing and it's something I put a lot of time in to.
I guess the point of this blog is to let people who may be struggling with it to know that there're lots of things it turns out that can help with the issue and I feel confidence in my play and calmness really helped me.
Also, special thanks to Karma (http://www.justin.tv/karmask89 - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/profile.php?user=KarMaSK) for the help with ZvZ coaching, amongst other things. He has a great stream but hasn't been a member of TL long enough to have it listed yet but it's worth a look when he's on.
and your brother sounds like a champion. Slowly getting over some ladder anxiety of my own and I definitely agree that just gg'ing and moving on helps a lot. I come from a competitive FPS background and how much I suck at RTS totally hurts my ego, but I'm slowly letting go of it and just focusing on steady improvement.
